New Thinking

“Social Influencer” Pilot Outperforms Search, Display Ads

July 21, 2010

In a recent presentation at ad:tech San Francisco, I shared results from a client pilot project that Empower MediaMarketing conducted with Mederma®, a leading U.S. scar management brand, and ShareThis®, the world’s largest sharing network.
To help launch a new product on a limited budget, Empower tapped into an analytics tool called ShareThis Influence, a segmentation [...]

Finding Your Social Voice

April 26, 2010

With all of the sharing, friending, commenting, checking in, retweeting, etc., the level of participation that social media platforms have ushered into the business world have delivered opportunity, as well as some new dilemmas.
Consider the average marketing planning cycle. Many marketers organize around an annual plan with campaign strategies that have specific start and end [...]

The “Digital Life” at South by Southwest

March 18, 2010

Well, I had an absolute wonderful trip to Austin (with my colleague Mike Adams) for South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi). Austin lives up to its motto of “keeping it weird”. While it’s weird and you see some things on the street you’d rather not see, I have a whole new appreciation for Austin and the subculture [...]

Can Online Buzz Predict the Oscars?

March 5, 2010

If online buzz from the week prior to the 82nd annual Academy Awards is any indication, the winners may have already been decided for best picture, best actor and best actress. A sample of data gathered by Empower MediaMarketing via our ChatterWatch(sm) service* indicates that Avatar is the favorite among social media fans to win [...]

The Ladder to “Social” Success

March 3, 2010

In 2007, Forrester Research analysts Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li developed the Social Technographics Ladder.  This tool classifies people according to how they behave and participate in Social Media.  While it’s not the only model out there, the Social Technographics Ladder has become very influential as a way to describe the various groups of people [...]